Musings of a Yorkshire Astrologer

by David Fisher

I am trying, as best as I can, to reply to Jane Amanda's query about the discrimination against astrologers, mentioned in the last issue of Transit. I can, of course, only speak from my own personal experiences. I think, if anything, I was regarded as someone unusual by former colleagues, but not in a disparaging sense. However, when it comes to applying for jobs, I think one has to be careful. Very often one is asked to mention hobbies and interests on an application form, or maybe an interest that involves certain talents and abilities which are relevant to the job for which one is applying, i.e. what employers call transferable skills. In fact, a former AA member recently asked me why I didn't mention all the organisation and work I put into the AA's Data Section in the later half of the 1980's (the days before it went onto computer) when filling in an application form.

Sadly, such a ploy would be likely to open up a whole new can of worms. Bearing in mind the general public's misconceptions of astrology, one is likely to be confronted at an interview (if lucky to progress that far) with the usual stock questions. The worst of these is usually the worried "But does it dominate your whole life?" And I have found it very difficult to convince interviewers that it doesn't. I think the best thing is to leave astrology out altogether. One female interviewer years ago was delighted to learn that I was interested in astrology because - guess what? - so was she. I thought to myself, "ah, we have a kindred sprit here, but I soon realised that her "expertise" was stuff she had gleaned from "Lucky Stars" columns, and at an interview there simply isn't time to convince anyone that astrology is considerably more involved than that.

Maybe I'm one of those astrologers who refuse to "come out of the closet", as it were, but I have a feeling that I'm not alone in that. Why share knowledge with people who are not going to benefit from it and/or are going to subject one to all the wrong reactions? I think long ago serious astrologers began to lose sight of the fact that they are the guardians of a secret knowledge.

Has anyone heard Pluto yet? Perhaps I should explain. I was recently browsing through Hyperion's latest CD catalogue when I spotted a CD entitled The Planets and Pluto recorded by the Halle Orchestra. Apparently the composer Colin Matthews has added to Holst's masterpiece a thing called Pluto - the Renewer. Well, yes, Pluto I certainly that, but I was a little puzzled when I read below an excerpt from a review in The Guardian:

"Wonderfully imaginative [Pluto] - a lightening fast scherzo that grows out of the dying moments of a preceding Neptune and finally evaporates as mysteriously as it started."

Does that "sound" like Pluto? Holst's work already contains a scherzo, Mercury. I would have thought that as in astrology, a musical piece called Pluto would have been an extension of Mars - The Bringer of War. Does the composer of Pluto know astrology? Perhaps not, but I would have thought he would at least have known that Holst's approach to The Planets was astrological rather than astronomical. I have a feeling that there are many music lovers out there who are unaware that Holst never intended to associate the seven movements of The Planets with the Roman deities. I am now hoping someone may request Pluto - The Renewer on Classics FM radio so I can tell whether Colin Matthews has "got it right".

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